"The Best MGS Game Yet"

Synopsis: What do you get when you throw in a cup of Silicon Knights, 2 Tablespoons of Konami and a pinch of Nintendo? Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. Twin Snakes is a remake of the highly acclaimed 1997 Metal Gear Solid and while not a remake in the same veins as Resident Evil, this game is a new experience well worth the price of admission.

Gameplay: 10 - MGS games have always been about stealth and action. and Twin Snakes is no exception. Twin Snakes features a good chunk of gameplay previous found in MGS2:SoL. Snake now has many more abilities than he did in the original MGS, and a good thing too b/c he'll need them. Snake can now hide in lockers when being hunted down, hang from ledges and shoot in first person view.

The Enemy AI has also seen a beef up in abilities. They now sport a farther sense of sight and can hear a lot better than before. They'll radio in for back-up once they spot you and will actually run away from you if they feel threatened and overwhelmed.

Snake has a ton of military arsenal to use and helpful items such as a scope, night vision goggles and his trusty cardboard boxes. The Boss battles have all been tweaked a bit and can easily become frustrating on the higher difficulty levels. If you're into action/stealth games then this is the Grand-daddy of them all. You can't go wrong with Twin Snakes.

Graphics: 9 - A lot of people are probably wondering whether or not Twin Snakes looks better than Sons of Liberty. Well, it does. The games sports much more detailed textures in many areas (though not in all), has a highly advanced shadowing system, and sports some really pretty character models. Snake and Liquid now actually have faces that resemble one another! Smoke effects, particle effects, water effects, reflections, stealth camo (which is the coolest in a game I've ever seen) shadows, heat wave effects, thermal imaging, you name it Twin Snakes probably has it.

SoL had rain effects and the original MGS had snow effects. So how does Twin Snakes weather effects stack up to SoL's? Very well. Each snow flake falls with it's own individuality. It really feels like you in the middle of a blizzard. Snakes bandanna even sways realistically to wind currents and body movement. Best. Cloth. Effects. Ever.

The Cut-scenes are extremely well directed and second to NONE (as far as real-time engine cutscenes go). At one point I forgot it was actually in-game engine and thought it was CG. Amazing stuff.

Sound: 9 - All of the music except for one or two tracks have been completely re-done. The new scores are very MGSish and fit well with the theme. The action music will get you pumped and really into what's going on. I like how you can hear bits of the MGS theme in some of the various tracks.

The voice acting has been changed and for the most part sounds exactly like the original. A few of the cast members have dropped their accents but the overall quality does not suffer from this. For those wondering, the Ninja's new voice actor does an extremely well job of portraying a tortured soul just looking for that last fight with Snake

Replayability: 8 - If you've ever played the original MGS or SoL and still find yourself playing them then you won't have a problem with Twin Snakes replay value. Tons of easter eggs to find, guards to torture and play with, Boss Battle mode, finding developers' ghosts with a camera, collecting dog tags, and much more.

Final Score: 9.0

Buy/Rent: An AAA game, this is a MUST BUY. If you have a GameCube then you need to have this game. It's just that simple.